


Stains and Apologies

by chockfullofsecrets



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Tickling, i love the early campaign 'everyone is so WEIRD here' energy to death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:35:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29585943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chockfullofsecrets/pseuds/chockfullofsecrets
Summary: Without breaking eye contact with Fjord, Yasha reaches over her shoulder again and this time pulls Molly out from behind her with a hand fisted in the collar of his coat. His heeled boots leave the scuffed wooden floor as she shakes him, gentle and chastising - dangling from her grip, he looks like nothing more than a naughty kitten. “Molly, you shouldn’t mess with people’s things.”Molly pouts. “Yash, come on, it was funny!”“You know what happens when you do that.”And, just like that, oh so satisfyingly, Molly’s entire demeanor shifts - his eyes spring wide, tail twitching agitatedly to match. “Oh.Oh - no, hey, that’s not-”
Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf & Yasha
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45





	Stains and Apologies

Fjord’s not going to kill Molly.

He can appreciate that it _looks_ like he’s going to kill him, the way he’s currently sprinting with one hand brandishing his sword and the other grasping for a purple tail just out of his reach, but he’s not. Really.

He’s just going to Blink onto him, tackle him to the floor, and rub his face into whatever muck’s been sloughed off the bootsoles of the inn’s latest patrons until he apologizes. 

Molly ducks through the nearest doorway, coat and horn jewelry flaring in a jangling arc behind him as he pivots. Fjord slams a hand into the already-splintering beam of the frame and skids after him. If he can just get a bead on where his insane roommate is going to be in the next six seconds - 

His attempt at foresight is instantly thwarted as he comes up short - literally, his head smacks off a leather bracer as he’s forcibly stopped by someone a good head taller than him. He stumbles back, pulling his sword to his chest in an unfortunately belated attempt not to stab anyone, and looks up.

Yasha looms before him with one arm raised protectively, looking blessedly un-gouged. Her expression as she reaches over her shoulder for the hilt of her own sword almost makes him wish that wasn’t the case. “Are you going to put that away?”

“Put away - oh.” His sword vanishes with a spray of salt. “That was. Ahem. For transportation.”

“Oh, that’s a relief.” The lilting voice comes from further in the room, and it only takes a second past that to see the edges of Molly’s coat peeking out from his human shield.

Fjord attempts to scowl at him through Yasha’s chest. “Well, maybe now that we’re both in one place I can ask you _what in Dwendal’s name_ you did that for.”

Molly becomes slightly more visible as Yasha turns to him. “Oh… Molly, what did you do?”

There’s a distinct lack of the guilty silence that Fjord thinks the situation deserves. “I,” Molly says, completely confident, “gave him him a gift-”

Fjord scoffs. “He _stole_ the soap I keep in my pack and replaced it-”

“With _better_ soap-”

Yasha’s gaze has been flicking between the two of them, and Fjord waits until it swings back his way before holding his hands out indignantly. “Is _that_ what you’d call this?”

All three of them stare at his hands. He doesn’t mind the flowery scent - the sea breeze has scoured his nostrils enough that he’s beyond caring what he smells like most days. 

The purple streaks staining his hands and forearms are a bit more offensive.

Yasha reaches out slowly to try and scrub some of it off with her thumb. Molly just snickers, waving his own fully purple hand out at Fjord. “To be fair, there’s no way I could have known that would happen.”

Without breaking eye contact with Fjord, Yasha reaches over her shoulder again and this time pulls Molly out from behind her with a hand fisted in the collar of his coat. His heeled boots leave the scuffed wooden floor as she shakes him, gentle and chastising - dangling from her grip, he looks like nothing more than a naughty kitten. “Molly, you shouldn’t mess with people’s things.”

Molly pouts. “Yash, come on, it was funny!”

“You know what happens when you do that.”

And, just like that, oh so satisfyingly, Molly’s entire demeanor shifts - his eyes spring wide, tail twitching agitatedly to match. “ _Oh._ Oh - no, hey, that’s not-”

The tips of his boots press towards the floor in a transparent attempt to get some leverage, but Yasha just huffs and scoops the entirety of his lanky form into her arms. “Here,” she tells Fjord bluntly over his protests, turning to one of the beds, “I’ll show you how we used to punish him at the circus.”

Fjord feels the heat of his anger sour instantly at the prospect of someone being punished on his behalf; it leaves a chalky taste in his mouth not unlike the leftover dust when he’s done filing. He catches Yasha’s eye before she can look back at Molly, holds up his hands. “Hey, let’s just take a minute here - now I’m not thrilled about this, but maybe we’re all a little too tense. We can talk it out like adults - there’s no need for punishment, right, Molly?”

His attempt at placation hits dead silence as Yasha swivels to regard him fully, Molly twisting in her arms to do the same. They stare.

Fjord stupidly wonders if _he’s_ going to get punished now, and then, belatedly, he connects the dots - head on, it’s much easier to see how loose her grip on him is, to intuit the rote familiarity of Molly’s bickering.

He’s still learning what that kind of easy, endlessly warm camaraderie looks like. Hard to do, when he’s never had it before.

He opens his mouth warily, praying that he can turn the bitter invective on his tongue into some kind of apology before it comes out. Luckily, Molly beats him to it with a fit of giddy laughter that has him slumped halfway over Yasha’s bicep.

“What a gentleman! See, Yasha, I can’t help myself - it’s impossible _not_ to mess with him.”

Yasha winces. It’s that more than anything else that has Fjord chuckling along, lowering his hands and shaking his head. “All right, I take it back, do whatever you want with him.”

“Hey!” 

Yasha’s forehead unfurrows, and in one smooth movement she drops Molly on the nearest mattress with his tail arcing behind. He starts to get back up, no doubt eager to keep talking, but Yasha just reaches between his horns to grab the back of his neck and gently but firmly shoves him face-first into cotton sheets. “He squirms a lot,” she says, almost apologetically.

“Uh… what?”

“Hold on.” She pulls away the bunched fabric of coat and shirt to expose a strip of purple skin that bares the shallow outline of ribs and the smooth dip of Molly’s back, gently fluttering her fingers over the edge of a tattooed flourish, and instantly her explanation starts to make sense. 

“Mmphhh! Hm, _heh_ -” Molly tries to roll onto his exposed side, but that just pushes Yasha’s hand further up his back to tickle along the side of his spine. “Okay, okahahay, I - oh, that’s enough - nahaha!”

“His back is a good spot,” Yasha instructs, and Fjord nods numbly along. Her fingers stray down to Molly’s side, squeezing lightly into the shivering softness just under his ribcage, and no matter how Molly struggles and whines between bursts of snickering there’s not a thing on earth he can do to stop her.

Fjord blinks. There’s this weird swooping sensation in his belly, watching how little ability Molly has to fight back - he can barely even lift his head, though he doesn’t seem to be struggling to breathe. “Are you just going to do that till he apologizes?”

“No. I do this until,” Yasha pauses, lips pulling flat as she considers, “until he gets… floppier. Less bratty,” she enunciates to Molly, and curls her fingers just below the small of his back until a muffled shriek works its way out of the bedsheets his face is buried in. “When that’s done he’ll apologize on his own.”

“Ah,” Fjord nods again. He’s confused as fuck-all, but it’s hard not to smile watching Yasha make mock-contemplative noises that have Molly’s tail twitching anxiously in response against her knees. Judging by the frantic laughter as she makes a claw of her hand and goes after his ribs, he’s right to be worried. 

It’s crazy, but oddly charming. Par for the course with their weird little group.

“You can join in if you want,” Yasha tells him. She’s not smiling back at him, but something in her multicolored gaze looks a little softer upon registering his tacit approval. “It’s faster that way.”

Molly currently looks to be trying to burrow straight through the mattress, anchored only by Yasha’s nails hooking under the back of his jaw, and Fjord feels a little bad for him. 

Then, glancing down, he catches sight of the purple streaks on his fingers again.

He clears his throat. “Yeah? Any suggestions?”

Yasha shifts slightly to let him closer to the bed. “Get one of his arms and tickle under it. Gently.”

Fjord sets his jaw and goes to tow one of Molly’s arms out from where he’s wrapped it tightly against his belly. Molly, naturally, is unsupportive of his endeavors. 

“Nooo - ha! - give that bahahack!” He almost twists free, too, but Yasha tickles his back again and that renders him flailingly incoherent long enough for Fjord to properly pin his forearm to the mattress.

Molly manages to peek out at him, the singular red eye that’s visible glinting with half-shed tears. Yasha’s stopped tickling for the moment to let him catch his breath in frantic heaves of air, but Fjord can see a glimpse of fang in the blissed-out grin he’s still sporting, a happy flush high on cheeks half hidden by hair and curling horns.

“You done?” he asks, just in case.

Molly sniffles in another breath. “Your hands look lovely, dear.”

Fjord raises an eyebrow and pokes him in the armpit, settling in on the floor and resting his chin on the mattress to better meet his gaze. Molly _squeaks_ , eye squeezing shut as his grin jolts wider. “Now that’s uncalled for, isn’t it?”

Molly’s tongue flickers out at him, mocking. “Do what you have to.”

Fjord just pokes him again, wiggling his finger a little this time, and feels Molly’s bicep tense in his hold as a flurry of giggles erupts. He waits patiently for the giggles to calm, for Molly’s arm to twitch again - this time, with impatience. “Oh? What are we doing again?”

His eye cracks open, looking Fjord over, and then springs wide in horror. “Yasha,” he whines, trying and failing to squirm away from Fjord’s amusement.

Yasha sounds pretty amused herself. “Yes, Molly?”

“This isn’t how it works!”

Yasha mulls this over. “I think this is the best it’s ever worked, actually.”

Realizing that he’s going to get no help from that quarter, Molly huffs and makes a heroic attempt to struggle upright under their hands. “Okay, fine, clearly we’re done here - _hngh_!”

He’s barely gotten his elbow to budge before Fjord is worrying at his armpit with a single fingertip, sending shivers through his entire body that bring him right back down with a frustrated yelp. “Are we?”

It’s terribly hard not to break his faux-clueless tone and laugh. He’s never seen Molly embarrassed before, especially at the threat of _not_ being tickled to death. But here he is, flushed all the way to the back of his neck, the dark purple blush standing out against Yasha’s pale fingers. That alone feels like enough recompense for the whole incident, so he sighs indulgently and lifts his chin to look over at Yasha. “Yeah, alright, let’s get him.”

Yasha takes her hand off Molly’s neck, letting him bolt up the instant before she shoves both hands under his shirt and Fjord starts tickling his armpit in earnest.He faceplants back onto the bed, curling up as best he can. “AH - hahaHA! Nahaha, _hah_ \- notthehehere, fuck-” Fjord glances over to see Yasha’s knuckles bulging through the fabric over his shoulder blades and grins, tickling up along the tops of Molly’s deltoids to bump knuckles with her. 

Molly laughs and laughs and laughs, occasionally jerking his head up to reveal a dizzingly bright grin, and as his hysterics eventually trail off into helpless wheezing he lies completely limp and more than a little sweaty in tangled sheets. Fjord, shaking out his hands before they can cramp up, contemplates fetching some soap to throw at him. He settles for rolling Molly over and flicking him gently in the forehead. 

Molly springs up suddenly, forcing him to step back, and completely ignores him to scrabble for purchase on Yasha’s arms. Fjord watches the both of them tug and rearrange until Molly is curled up half in Yasha’s lap, her making an extremely halfhearted attempt to smooth his mussed hair. 

That bitter feeling inches back in, just a little, and he starts to turn for the door on instinct.

Then, eyes still bleary with tears of laughter, Molly looks straight at him. “Well, that was interesting.”

Fjord meets his gaze. “We’ll call it even,” he says, “provided you don’t touch my stuff again. Didn’t we _literally_ just do this with Nott?”

“Even…” Molly muses. “Sure.” His fangs make a sudden reappearance, the crown jewels of a mischievously evil grin. “Until I find out where you’re ticklish, at least.”

Fjord wills himself not to take a step back. “Oh, that won’t be necessary.”

Molly and Yasha look at him with two completely different expressions that somehow manage to contain the exact same level of smugness. “It’s kind of a cycle,” Yasha admits. “He used to hide behind the tents and jump out at me, and then I’d have to do it all over again.”

The swooping sensation is back in full force, and the only thought that helps him force down a nervous smile is knowing it will expose the nubs of his tusks. “I…” He nods as calmly as he can at Molly. “I’ll be keeping an eye out, then.”

Molly says nothing, just keeps grinning implacably, but the edge of Yasha’s mouth quirks up in a soft smile. “Good.”

Fjord gestures hastily to indicate some kind of goodbye and takes his leave before Molly can start doing any investigating. Crazy, totally weird, but that _feeling_ -

He’s halfway back to his room before he realizes that he never got an apology.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you're so inclined, come say hi on [tumblr](https://chockfullofsecrets.tumblr.com)!


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